Valero Gift to the Mission
We have exciting news, in case you haven't heard -- the Living Water Rescue Mission was recently the recipient of an award of $14,000 donated by Valero of Albion, Nebraska!  Valero employees participated in a fundraiser through sponsorship of the 2011 Valero Texas Open and Benefit for Children Golf Classic in San Antonio, Texas -- Jim Dickerson of the Albion News reports the following quote from Andy Roberts, manager of the Valero Renewables - Albion Refinery:  ""This is just one of several locations that will proudly distribute funds to children’s charities throughout North America this year," said Roberts. "These gifts enable our community agencies to continue their good work for the many children they serve. We appreciate all that these agencies do to improve children’s lives."'  Dickerson further wrote:  "Thanks to the generosity of Valero’s business partners and sponsors, the Valero Texas Open remains one of the most charitable tournaments on the PGA Tour," said Roberts."  We are grateful to God and to Valero for this gift, and we are grateful for the opportunity to partner with other organizations who provide resources for the needs of children.   Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:14 NIV)  Some of the ways we are able to help are in providing food baskets to families in need, providing needed clothing and household items, and providing Bible study and chapel services to families coming in to receive food baskets.  We received feedback from one mother who came back to the mission after receiving some clothing and other household items, who said her little girl was so happy when they got home with their bounty of the previous trip, the little girl shouted out to her sibling at home, "look what Jesus gave us!!"  That's the kind of feedback we like!!

2011 Celebration Banquet Just Around the Corner!
We have more fun in store!  On November 14th, 2011, the Living Water Rescue Mission will host its 2011 Celebration Banquet at the York City Auditorium at 6th and Nebraska Avenue!  Seating will begin at 6 p.m., and dinner is served at 6:30 p.m. sharp!!  We'll have a great dinner, great music, testimonies of lives transformed by the love of Christ, and all at no charge!  We will be taking reservations, in order to be sure to have enough food and seating.  Please call the mission at 402-362-0127 to reserve seats for your co-workers, friends, or family, or all of the above!  We are asking for table sponsors -- $125 to sponsor one table, and we hope God will abundantly increase attendance this year from the 300 we served in 2010.  Please consider sponsoring a table.  The banquets are a true blessing to each one who comes and hears all that God has been doing in and through His people!   "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:25 

Ah!  Praise the Lord for the warmth of the sun and the coolness of a late summer morn!  We are blessed to receive these gifts from His mighty hand. 

The golf fundraiser was a huge success!  God was faithful, as always, in bringing ten groups of four to five people to play golf for Jesus, and a good time was had by all!  The York Country Club, represented by Barry Redfern, graciously extended the offer to set up next year's event, and the date for that will be published when it is made available.  The golf course there was a beautiful representation of God's handiwork, and mankind's participation in caring for it.

The coming weeks hold more in store for Living Water Rescue Mission!  August 27, 2011, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., LWRM will be involved in grilling and serving burgers at Walgreen's Dawg Days of Summer event, where people will be bringing their pets for a photo shoot - we're gonna put on the dog!  I'm just glad we're not serving hot dogs!  (Groan!)  Anyway, come on out for that and get a burger - bring your pooch or your kitty or your gecko, what have you, and have fun with us!

Yorkfest is only a few weeks away!  September 8 through 11 is the anticipated date, I believe, check the York Chamber of Commerce website for details.  We are planning to have a float in the parade, contingent on the availability of our faithful friends who are gifted in this area!  Contact us at the mission at 402-362-0127, with your information and how you can help.  The theme for Yorkfest this year is Celebrate Family.  We know a little bit about family at LWRM.

Jesus made a startling statement about family during a time when he was inside a house with the twelve disciples he'd just appointed, and a so great a crowd gathered around them that they could not even eat.  The story is told for us in Mark, Chapter 3.   Verse 21 says, 'When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."'  The teachers of the law also spoke against Jesus, saying he was driving out demons by the power of the devil.  Jesus rebuked them, saying there was no way Satan would be involved in the work that he, Jesus, was doing, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." (Mark 3:24-25).  By the way, Jesus added, believing such things about Jesus and the Holy Spirit is a sin that cannot be forgiven (v. 29).  So, into this setting come along Jesus' mother and brothers.  "Standing outside they sent someone in to call him.  A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."  "Who are my mother and brothers?" he asked.  Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."  (Mark 3:31-34).  Wow!  Some might comment, "that's pretty cold, man."  But when we are sold out to Jesus, giving our lives to the Lord, as God commands us to do right there in His Word, over and over again, and our families are accusing us of being a little nutty, or over-zealous, or fanatical, we find acceptance in the body of Christ.  That is what our guests, our disciples in the New Life Program, and our visitors find when they come to the Living Water Rescue Mission.  We are family.  We are brothers and sisters of Christ, together, children of the Most High God. 

Jesus calls us all to be His family, even our unbelieving brothers, sisters, and friends.  Even the addict at the gas station who can't make eye contact with us for the confusion and chaos in his soul.  Even the rich young ruler or successful businessman who thinks he has better things to do than give up his god, Mammon, to follow Christ.  "And it shall be that whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:21), and John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  (Emphasis added.)  That's why we obey the Great Commission, "Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age." (Matthew 25:19-20 Amplified Version).

This coming together as a family will most certainly bless us in our heavenly home, as we see those we loved in this life meet us and spend eternity with the Lord, but we also rejoice in this blessing here and now!  Not only that, but let's not be discouraged or dismayed when our worldly loved ones roll their eyes or shake their heads over our devotion to our "other" family, that blessed union with all the saints in Christ.   "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him."  (1 John 3:1).

Grace and peace be with you in Christ Jesus.

We're Golfin' for Jesus -- Are You In?

Dear Friends,

Praise the Lord! Living Water Rescue Mission has been open and serving the Lord for over a month now. Thank you all for your part in making Phase 1 come together. We started helping guests within hours of opening and have been ever since. On April 29th we had a huge turnout for LWRM’s open house—around 200 folks came to tour the mission God built. That day is in my top 10 best, what a joy it is to boast in the Lord. In God we have boasted all day long, And we will give thanks to Your name forever. Selah. (Psalm 44:8)

There have been some that have blessed to hear my ♫Cookin’ For Jesus♫ song as well as all of the related verses. We at the mission have sung them all—♫Haulin’ for Jesus♫, ♫Sortin’ for Jesus♫, ♫Hammerin’ for Jesus♫, ♫Cleanin’ for Jesus♫ and who could forget that Appalachian favorite ♫Drivin’ for Jesus♫, and many more. The point is that we at the Mission do all things for Jesus, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25:40) Stay with me now, it will all make sense soon.

We are holding the first annual Golf Fundraiser at the York Country Club, brought to you by our Title sponsor “Chances R”. It will be a scramble starting at 12:00pm on June 24th. Even if it rains, come anyway. We will have lunch and door prizes, and you can pick up your certificate to play your tournament round at the convenience of your foursome prior to July 29th. After that date, we will tally all of the scores, and award the Church Trophy and award prizes to the top three teams in each division. So rain or shine, the game is on.

Ok are you still with me, It is with great joy that I present to you the 34th verse to our beloved song. On June 29th all those participating with the 1st annual Living Water Rescue Mission Golf Fundraiser will be ♫Golfin’ for Jesus♫, Praise the Lord!

In all seriousness, we do need your help. The summer months have traditionally been a famine as far as giving goes. Please support the Golf fundraiser; it is an oasis for the mission. Even if you are not a golfer you can help this effort by sponsoring a hole or half hole. (See the enclosed Flyer) If neither works for you, you can caddy from the couch with a donation of any size. At any rate, I would ask you to pray that God would be glorified in all of this, and the mission would be blessed.

I am so encouraged by God’s faithfulness. The transition of building a mission building to building a ministry has been relatively smooth. Thank you to those that have volunteered and I am thanking those of you that have filled out a volunteer application form in advance. There are some meal times still available for sponsoring. You can call our Meal Coordinator Winnie Callahan at 402-362-3252. For those that have prompted to serve but do not know in what capacity, let us help find our God given spiritual gift. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

My prayer for you all is that God would bless you in our area of need, that He would guide you in His will, and that the Lord strengthens you for His good purpose. May your Memorial Day be a time of reflection; producing blessed memories.

♫Workin’ for Jesus♫,

Chaplain Dave Martelle – Associate Director
Living Water Rescue Mission
701 South Lincoln Ave
York, NE 68467 Phone: 402-362-0127

Call Chaplain Dave for your hard copy of this sign-up sheet! WE NEED GOLFERS!

For the Love of Christ

It is May, it is spring, and we give praise to God for His goodness in giving us this blessed season!  The trees are in bloom (and some of us have the red noses and watery eyes to show for it!), and the daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths reveal their beauty.  What a sweet time of renewal for all of creation!  But even this is only a shadow of what is to come, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. " (Isaiah 65:17)

We've entertained a number of guests thus far: Ronald; Robert; Zechariah; Brian; Mike; Thomas; Steve; to name a few.  Each of these have blessed us in the unique ways in which God designed this to be, and the Lord has touched every one of them as He intended to do with this little stop in the journey of their lives.  Thomas still remains with us, as he goes through the process of obtaining his documents to get a proper ID so he can find employment.

The big news is Big Mike!  We have a disciple in the mission!  Big Mike comes to us to begin the New Life program, where he will be taking classes and moving along through a program which is life-changing.  How much it changes one's life is up to the one who is involved in it.  A disciple in the New Life program also  helps out at the mission in a variety of ways, so this is a special blessing to Brian and Chaplain Dave.  We praise God for sending Big Mike our way, and pray that Mike's heart will be open and obedient to the ways in which God intends to instruct and reshape his life.  This, too, is evidence of the Lord making all things new, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.  (2 Corinthians 5:17)  Praise the Lord!

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

The Mission Is Open! Praise God!

     The Living Water Rescue Mission opened its doors to the public on April 1, 2011, and was ready to take overnight guests on April 2.  Since that time, we've taken in a few men in need of this ministry, and had to turn a few away due to their refusal to follow the mission's guidelines.  Those we have sheltered for a night, or for several nights, have been men who are traveling the country on foot -- one man had sold all his possessions to take up a life of depending solely on the love of Christ.  Each day he stayed at the mission, he was in the Word, studying, making notes, discussing it with others.  He had traveled here to York from Michigan, and left last weekend, heading for a destination to the west.  Chaplain Dave made the comment after a few days spent with this man, that he and Brian Weber may have been entertaining angels.  Another man was simply searching.  He left around the same time to find his way somewhere down the road.  Since that time, we have been blessed with different guests, with different backgrounds, needing to be rescued from the world for different reasons. 

     Another way we have been privileged to be the hands and feet of Christ to those in need, is in providing a food basket and women's chapel service to a woman whose male partner had moved out of their home after an argument, taking nearly all their belongings with him.  If she avails herself to our services, the mission will continue to help her re-establish her household with donated items, and help her with food until she is able to provide for these needs. 

     Every one of these people stands alone as a creation of the same One who created you and me. Every one could really use your prayers. You and I aren't completely aware of how to pray for each of these, but be assured, fellow pilgrim, that the Spirit knows what each one needs.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8:26-27)

     The people of this community of York, Nebraska, as well as the surrounding areas, from as far away as Callaway, Nebraska, have shown a great commitment to joining in this partnership of rescue!  We are so blessed to see the excitement shown by youth groups, service groups, business leaders, and churches -- all of whom want to be a part of the dynamic ministry of reaching out to the hurting around us!  We praise God for the way He is stirring the hearts of His people!  They are coming together from various denominations to work shoulder-to-shoulder -- first in the construction phase, now in the ministry development phase; and all through this, in funding this ministry!

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)

     We are so grateful for your prayers and petitions on behalf of the Living Water Rescue Mission and the men and women who are served there, as well as the men and women who serve.  In your prayers, please also remember that Phase 2 remains to be fully funded.  Please continue to pray for us, and tell other brothers and sisters in Christ our story, share this blog with them, get in touch with us if you would like!  This blog only touches a little of the work that is being done; the hand of God, and the glory of God that is evident in the way the Living Water Rescue Mission has come to be!  Chaplain Dave's monthly letters that are sent to prayer partners and donors give much more detailed information, and our Facebook page also keeps fairly current with photos and posts of happenings at and involving the mission.

     In closing, please accept my thanks for your interest in the Living Water Rescue Mission, and for your prayers.  As you pray, place your trust fully in God, because He is faithful and just, and He will answer.
 

I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God.  (Psalm 38:15)

He answered their prayers, because they trusted in Him.  (1 Chronicles 5:20b)

Worshiping with Callaway Jr. High Youth Group during their Mission Trip at LWRM April 9-10, 2011.

 

Turning the Corner

The building at 701 S. Lincoln Avenue in York, Nebraska has been under reconstruction for almost a year now, with workers gutting the building, pouring new floors, building new walls, hanging sheetrock on those walls, installing the systems, and so on.  What was once a dairy barn, and an auto mechanics shop, and a car dealership, and more, is becoming a home.  LWRM is becoming a place where people will find rest.  Road-weary travelers will find comfort and light, truth and grace within these walls.  Tired souls, beaten down by the world and dying inside will find new life in Christ and living, growing bits of nature in the garden areas that will await them just outside a couple of exterior doors.  Most of all, best of all, those whose hearts are ready will find themselves at Jacob's well, where they will drink water that will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:14)

The sounds you hear at the mission now are the sounds of construction; the smells are that of paint, glue, and new carpet.  There will be new sounds and smells in a few short weeks.  Voices of people coming in to tell their stories and receive help.  Guidance, encouragement, and reassurance from wise counsel, people of God sharing His truth with the lost and the seeking.  Fellowship.  Chapel services.  Babies and little children crying, talking, singing praises to God.  The smells will be of three meals a day, brought in by the people of God, some of it prepared by the hands of those being helped, some of it being prepared by workers from the churches.  All of us working together, to build new life, new hope.  I wonder what grace smells like?

We have been building a building.  We are coming to a corner in the road, where we will be building a ministry.  Won't you come and join us?

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.  Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future.  But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house.  And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.  (Hebrews 3:4-6)

We're Getting There

It's a cliche, but we like to say "half the fun is getting there" when we're talking about the anticipation of arriving at some destination.  That has certainly been true of the process of seeing the mission building come together!  Even though we have yet to provide a warm bed within the mission walls to someone in need, there have been many homeless and hurting individuals helped along the way to a better life by the Living Water Rescue Mission in 2010 and already in 2011!  Praise the Lord for His amazing faithfulness in meeting our needs and blessing us so abundantly with His presence and provision!

Many folks have been given transportation to Columbus Rescue Mission or Crossroads Rescue Mission in Hastings for a place to stay.  Others have received food baskets along with a helping of the gospel to fill their hearts as well as their stomachs.  Still more have received the truth of God's Word in the library of the York County Jail, where LWRM staff and volunteers have chapel every Monday evening.

The staff and volunteers have, in turn, received the tremendous blessing of seeing the Lord's hand in their lives and in the lives of others.  Hallelujah!  I have loved having the fellowship of other believers, getting to know some really wonderful people in the York area and the surrounding communities, who all share a deep desire to serve Christ by showing His great love to those in need.

We look forward to 2011, to the exciting prospects of what God has in store for us!  May you have a blessed year, and know the joy of the Lord in your hearts as you enter into the times ahead!

"Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you.  Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.  The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you."  Exodus 34:10